


The Howling

by havisham



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: (but no more so than canon), Bitterness, Curse Your Sudden But Inevitable Betrayal!, Fealty Kink, Grimdark, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 07:44:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3720721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/pseuds/havisham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were both cursed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Howling

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, this fic has been gathering (metaphorical) dust in my WIP folder since B2MeM 2012. I always had a vague notion of expanding it, but that never happened, so I thought I'd just share what I have anyway. 
> 
> Prompts used: G56 - Genres Card - Slash & Sons of Fëanor Card - Caranthir after Uldor’s betrayal, Book Title: _The Bloody Chamber_.

He should have been the one to kill me. 

Oh, that was the only thought that echoed through my dying brain, that it should have been him, finishing what he started long ago. Maglor killed me instead, his sword flashing one moment and then I felt a warm flush against my throat. I reeled, and collapsed, choking on my own blood.

The others were screaming, their fair faces twisted, teeth bared, how did I dare do this, did I not know I was _nothing_ compared to them? A catastrophe, unthinkable, betrayed! 

I could not find him, and my final wish was thwarted. I only wanted to see his face when he saw that I had betrayed him.

*

When I was young and my people had newly come to Beleriand, I looked on this green land in wonder and desire. I watched the sun rise to the east, but then my gaze swung ever-westward, for that was where everyone's hearts laid. I listened and listened for stories, gossip dropped carelessly into the ears of waiting ears of children, for stories about the West.

I heard of the lands and running waters, of riches beyond my reckoning, and wars that called for our strength, for our loyalties. Young though I was, my heart was not stirred by the talk of gallantry and feat of arms.

I knew better, even then.

I was only a boy when my father took me aside from my play to tell me – “Listen closely, for I will not tell you again. You will soon have a lord to serve. You must serve me, through this lord. Do not question him. Do not make him doubt you. Do whatever you can to make him trust you. To depend on you. Make him love you, if you can.”

. He took in my skinny frame, my frightened face with a jaundiced eye.

“Try, at least,” he said, finally.

When I first saw my Lord Caranthir, I thought he had the coldest eyes I had ever seen, eyes that burned in their coldness. His hair was black as mine, hastily gathered up and tied down. He seemed as pale as any of his people. (But then again, I had seen him during his calmer moments. In his wrath, his face would grow red and livid. A frightening thing to behold.) 

He glared at my father, and said, “This is hardly more than an infant.” 

My father sucked in a breath -- not so, my lord! and said, “You forget, my lord, that we grow faster than your kind. My son is almost seven years old, and most capable, I assure you.” His hands were heavy on my shoulders.

Lord Caranthir sighed – shrugged – a took out his sword. My father's hands dug into my shoulders. _Kneel_ , he hissed in my ear.

“Kneel,” echoed the lord, and so I did.

I knelt before Caranthir with clear eyes and swore to serve him with my life. I did not know that I was to meant to deceive him. The only thought I remember feeling was awe – _was it this sword he had used to kill his kin?_

He tapped my shoulders but lightly, and there was no warmth in his voice when he commanded me to rise, to take up my own sword.

My own eyes cast down, I swore again, my undying faith.

“Come to me when you have grown useful,” he said, attention drifting away from me.

“I will, my lord.”

*

I grew, useful and _fast_ , and found myself away from home more and more, to live among Elves. 

They did not like the looks of me, and said so in my hearing.

Unlovingly my people’s faces and bodies were described, sun-bronzed skin (the sun, to them, was a lesser thing than the lights they had lost) derided, strong bodies (built through an hardscrabble life) dismissed as broad - short - ugly.

I pretended not to understand their twisting language, and instead laughed loudly at some joke. 

(Though my stomach clenched, I ground my teeth down and longed to speak.)

Of course, I did not care what sort of face they liked, what sort of body they liked best, these mournful, reedy folk with their strange eyes and skin that always had the pallor of death about it.

I did not care at all.

(I have always preferred the sun to the stars.)

*

My new lord was a volatile one, I learned. 

Caranthir the Dark. Like me but not, his darkness was buried his heart, and it stained his face when he tore at himself in passion, shouting at his servants, who followed him dazed silence. I watched, amused, until he turned his fury to me. 

“You! What you laughing at?”

I straightened, and bowed, a gesture he ignored with an impatient sigh. I said, quite honestly, “Nothing, my lord.” 

“Of course it’s nothing,” he turned to glare at his wretched servants. Then he turned back to me, “You have not grown as much as I had commanded.” 

“I am sorry, my lord, but I stand as tall as I ever will.” I came up only to his chest, if even that. 

“Never mind, Uldor son of Ulfang. I do not need tall servants, only good ones. Come with me.” 

*

I chafed at the the way my people were expected to bend and scrape for the few favors these mighty lords of the West were willing to give. Always a cynic, I grew bitter, though (I flatter myself) I hide it well enough. No one could have had reason to question my loyalty, but I suppose I was never as good of actor as I supposed myself to be, for Caranthir saw through me easily enough. 

“You’re hiding something,” he said one day, out of the blue, as I startled awake from one interminable meeting or other. I denied it (my heart dropped to my stomach, what would they -- what would he do to me if he knew?) 

But he did not know -- he dismissed me, saying that my romantic troubles had no place in councils of war. 

“What makes you think I am having romantic troubles?” I was infuriated, but kept my temper in check. 

“You are not married,” he started. 

“Neither are you,” I shot back. 

He smiled thinly. “But I am.” (Not that it was any of my business.) “And in any case, don’t you wish to be married to someone young and pretty?” 

My voice was as dry as I could manage. “Someone moderately young, and somewhat pretty, yes.” 

He gave me a pitying look. “With such standards, no wonder you are alone, Uldor.” 

I laughed and he smiled back at me, sour. 

*

At first it seemed strange, that things should change for us as it it did. I grew older, of course, and my once curly black hair soon grew streaked with an early frost. 

He, of course, stayed the same. 

We were similar in other ways, however. “Both of us have bitter souls,” he said once, those strange eyes alight. He was asking something of me that he could not outright ask. 

Then, I should have played a simpleton, and smiled and stumbled home, and nothing would be said about it tomorrow. But I was sick at heart of playing deaf and dumb, of taking and taking, until there was seeming nothing to me at all. 

So I followed him down, always two steps behind. We stopped at his door -- I, uncertain, he, sly, unknowable. His chamber that was dyed dull red in the firelight -- like a chamber full of blood. The lock slid into place, and though the room was hot and my robes were close, I shivered a little at what I was about to do. 

He was speaking, not for the first time, of a woman he once knew. 

“Haleth,” he said, admiration and puzzlement written on his face. He never understood why she would reject his help (help he offered only after her father died, and her brother too, and the people she led greatly reduced), but still he remembered her. 

“She had spirit,” he said, as if that was a fault. 

“I understand her reluctance to receive your help.” 

He gave me a sharp look. “Why?” 

“You expected that woman to --” 

“You know nothing of her -- “ 

“I know enough --” I said, angry and unable to stop myself. “I know the feeling of owning so much to someone that you can never make things equal between yourselves.” 

His hands froze at my collar. “Do you not wish to continue?” 

“I shouldn’t.” I shouldn’t, but that never stopped me before. 

*

Later, in a more sweaty hour, he turned and looked at me, a pinched look on his face. It was, I recognized, his look of concern. “What do you truly want, Uldor?” 

I thought that was obvious. “Everything.” 

“You can’t have it.” 

“I know.” I considered for moment and then said, “Tell me about the nature of your curse. Is that why your woman left you?” 

Whatever warmth we had generated now dissipated. He told me coolly that I was dismissed. I said nothing else. I dressed and I left. We did not meet behind closed doors again. 

*

I convinced myself that it was like this: with every action I undertook, it was to get him to trust me, to rely on me, to never question my devotion. And if the Eldar could not quite look into one’s heart and read the contents within, they could still smell out deception quite easily. So I had to believe with my whole heart, to convey my own trust, my own reliance upon him, and my devotion. 

In a way, I convinced myself as well as anyone else.

*

“Tell Lord Maedhros that this delay is inevitable,” I said for the twentieth time. The messenger gave me a doubtful look, and so I repeated myself. “The way will be clear, soon.” 

*

For all I wanted, I received nothing in return. As I take my place among the dead, I only wonder one thing -- that while I served two masters in my life, I could not tell always the difference between them. 

I hear the name they call me. Uldor the Accursed! So it is, but I am dead and my curse is spent. 

Not so with him. He goes on and his curse goes with him.


End file.
